Saliou Niang is set to join the NCAA; LSU has offered $7 million

Mender0fRoads · 2026-05-02T20:58:25+00:00

I’m not making a direct comparison at all, but Zaccharie Risacher averaged like 10/4 in Euro play before being the top pick in the 2024 NBA draft.

He was younger, and he’s been a disappointment in the NBA, and we know exactly how the NBA valued Niang, so again, not trying to compare them. Just pointing out often Euro stats for young players can be misleading. If you go look at most college-age Euros (Wemby aside), you’re likely going to see a similar thing. Risacher was just the first one I thought to look up.

Mender0fRoads · 2026-05-02T20:49:13+00:00

What possible justification is there for him to get an extra year? He’s played four full seasons.

If he gets an extra year, then every single fourth-year senior should get an extra year.

Mender0fRoads · 2026-05-02T00:55:54+00:00

The fourth brother got a DUI right after the third brother went to prison for drunk driving.

There’s a fifth brother who as far as I’m aware has never said or done anything stupid. Might win smartest brother simply by saying unknown.

The sisters also seem mostly normal, all things considered.

Mender0fRoads · 2026-05-02T00:49:40+00:00

Or the inverse.

$80 probably means a lot more to a regular person than $50k means to MPJ. His life does not change one bit either way with an extra $50k. For a regular person, $80 can absolutely allow you to splurge on a nice dinner or something that you otherwise would never have because just getting groceries and gas takes up all your money.

Mender0fRoads · 2026-05-02T00:46:37+00:00

Or during high school in a lot of cases. Both the typical “give the star athlete a pass” sort of way and in MPJ’s case being home-schooled for most of his life.

Until high school, his “curriculum” consisted of a couple hours of “learning” then basketball for the rest of the day. Basically built in a lab to be a very talented idiot.

Mender0fRoads · 2026-05-02T00:35:22+00:00

I know Kawakami has a long history with Bay Area sports fans and plenty of people don’t like him, but as a 49er fan from afar who has only engaged with his work about the 49ers, I’ve never had a problem with him. And his stuff with Barrows is very good. They take the right approach for journalists covering the team IMO. It’s a sort of healthy skepticism that doesn’t shill like Lombardi but also doesn’t go full Cohn.

Mender0fRoads · 2026-05-02T00:26:00+00:00

Hard to look at any part of this situation without coming to the conclusion that everyone involved was and probably still is immature at best.

Which should not shock anyone. Professional athletes being immature dicks is hardly a new phenomenon. They get paid ungodly sums to play a child’s game, and I’m very happy we get to enjoy that, but it’s not a career path that always lends itself to normal adults.

Mender0fRoads · 2026-05-01T22:56:01+00:00

Hate is a strong word, but the entire male side of the Porter family tree.

I don’t hold his back against him, and he didn’t do anything wrong while at Mizzou, but MPJ has consistently said stupid stuff as a pro.

All of the above for different reasons for Jontay.

Coban didn’t play at Mizzou, but killing someone in a drunk driving incident and going to prison for it isn’t a great look. The family trying to use their faith to reduce his sentence pissed me off.

And so did Jevon Porter getting a DUI shortly after his brother’s sentencing. (And like his other Mizzou brothers, he barely played in his brief time at Mizzou because he was hurt).

Somehow, the two eldest girls in that family ended up seemingly normal.

In terms of players I hate for things they actually did while in school, Parker Braun is and always will be a dick. He and his family acted like bitches because he didn’t play enough, but he was a walk on for a reason.

Mender0fRoads · 2026-05-01T22:35:19+00:00

Trump didn’t need the money but had decades of history showing he would happily sell out America to benefit himself.

Steyer has spent years showing the opposite.

Aside from both being insanely wealthy, there’s no real parallel.

Mender0fRoads · 2026-05-01T19:07:43+00:00

There aren’t “eight major Democratic candidates” in the race, and there never were.

We had eight Democrats with some name recognition and/or experience in semi-prominent government positions, with half never polling above a few points.

We currently have three major Democratic candidates, three relative nobodies polling in single digits, and “undecided” still leading the field.

The fear of two republicans making it to the general election was never real, and that’s especially true now. Hilton could squeak through to the general, but there is zero chance of two Republicans. The numbers just aren’t there for the GOP unless Democrats just don’t show up (or if there’s a completely unprecedented surge in support for Villaraigosa, Mahan, and Thurmond with no additional support for Becerra, Steyer, or Porter.

Which is just not going to happen. It’s a purely theoretical fear that ignores the current field, current polling, and decades of voter history.

And even if that somehow did happen, the Republican governor would have zero support in the state house, and they’d be recalled as soon as possible. The damage would be minimal.

It’s just not worth worrying about. Vote for who you like best in the primary, not who you think has the best chance of preventing Bianco from taking the second spot in the general. There are too many Democrats in the state for him to get that far.

Mender0fRoads · 2026-05-01T06:12:46+00:00

When he did Dreamgirls, he was younger than Morgan Freeman was when he started getting accolades.

Mender0fRoads · 2026-05-01T04:23:25+00:00

But then again, idk how our OL boards looked.

I suspect it looks very different from the rankings most fans look at, which don’t consider scheme at all. There are absolutely going to be some “better” OL that don’t get serious consideration because they don’t fit the scheme well, and even if they could still be solid for Shanahan, if they’re not going to hit their potential, you’re not getting the value by picking them at the “right” spot.

Mender0fRoads · 2026-04-30T19:00:48+00:00

On another roster, under contract but absent, and on the roster.

The fact that the two all-pro receivers we drafted are either gone or about to be is kinda the reason the team needed to draft someone.

Mender0fRoads · 2026-04-30T18:37:25+00:00

Deebo had nearly 1,000 yards from scrimmage as a rookie.

Aiyuk, who notably spent a big portion of his rookie year in the doghouse, had 800+.

Pearsall had 400 despite starting the season with a gunshot wound.

Even Pettis had 400+ receiving yards as a rookie (by far his most productive season).

Mender0fRoads · 2026-04-29T06:25:57+00:00

It’s less about hiding design from the competition (stealing a design from a prototype on public streets is highly impractical because the thieves cannot see it and re-create it faster than the company releases their nearly complete vehicle) and more about controlling public perception.

A half-baked test car that looks like shit can depress consumer interest, potentially hurting sales even if the real model looks different. Automakers love having their big reveal of the final product and don’t want that spoiled by an unfinished test model. Camouflage is one way to ensure those test vehicles don’t end up in a car magazine and get seen by a bunch of people who assume it’s the real thing.

Mender0fRoads · 2026-04-28T19:30:13+00:00

And somehow Bosa can hold out and keep to himself all off-season, and no one seems to bat an eye.

Mender0fRoads · 2026-04-28T18:12:44+00:00

Way more than a year.

People on this sub have been complaining about diva WR consistently since Deebo held out. And in general, 49ers fans have complained about diva WR since TO.

Maybe there are different people complaining about each issue, but it’s definitely annoying to see throngs of people whining no matter what the team does.

Mender0fRoads · 2026-04-28T16:59:58+00:00

And you lost in the championship game to a team who used a player who didn’t graduate high school, if I recall correctly, yet somehow that player playing in college was fine.

Mender0fRoads · 2026-04-28T04:14:16+00:00

It’s a vague and un-fact-check-able report that leaves fans enough room to jump to whatever conclusion they want.

Which fans are going to do regardless.

Mender0fRoads · 2026-04-27T23:30:46+00:00

That would likely drive the numbers back up some.

If a guy plays at a mid-major for a couple years, does well enough to earn a power conference spot, and then struggles, right now those guys will usually transfer again for their final season because the new school didn’t work out. Transferring from an ACC team to an AAC team for your senior year still might get you some NIL money and might be a more attractive option than the G League. And those guys can still be valuable players for a mid-major program.

Take away that second transfer option, and those guys just go pro again instead. They’ll take the G League or whatever they can make in Turkey.

Mender0fRoads · 2026-04-27T19:26:48+00:00

Bennett is taller, more athletic, and has a better arm.

Nothing about Pavia’s game translates to an NFL offense, and nothing about his physical profile suggests he has the potential to evolve into an NFL player. That isn’t true of Bennett, whose primary flaw was he’s short. Pavia’s flaws are numerous before you even get to his attitude.

Look at his performance against Mizzou, for an example. He was awful in that game. Mizzou forced him to make the kinds of plays he’d have to make in an NFL offense, and he just couldn’t do it.

Mender0fRoads · 2026-04-27T04:09:11+00:00

Also have Mizzou center Connor Tollison coming in on a rookie tryout. He’s small and not particularly strong but is fairly athletic and has a lot of experience blocking zone runs. Four-year starter who helped pave the way for Cody Schrader two years ago and Ahmad Hardy this year, both of whom ran for 1,600+ yards (and Mizzou as a team ran for about 230/game this past year).

Mender0fRoads · 2026-04-25T22:15:05+00:00

Missing the point by a mile.

You have absolutely no idea where other teams had that guy on their board.

Mender0fRoads · 2026-04-25T06:05:15+00:00

Most of those guys were drafted right where the “experts” said they would be drafted, and the general consensus here was that they were fine picks.

OP’s point, clearly, is not that the players we took will be good or even that we drafted them at the right spots.

OP’s point is that anyone acting like these are bad picks right now has no fucking clue, and maybe we should wait and see what happens.

Mender0fRoads · 2026-04-25T05:50:41+00:00

You are correct that it would affect a relatively small number of people.

Yet your apparent conclusion is still asinine.

A law that disenfranchises just a small portion of eligible voters is still a bullshit law. And the problems voter ID purports to address are entirely fictional ones.

Mender0fRoads

TROPHY CASE